Article Database

The Gruesome Twosome

The Men Behind the Monsters!

This spring/summer a terrible two-headed beast swept across the USA. Citizens turned out in their thousands to witness the monster terrorize their towns with it’s armory of guillotines, gallows and brain-rotting rock ‘n’ roll beats...

The Gruesome Twosome tour can only be described as the stuff of horror rock fans’ best nightmares. Co-headlined by Godfather of Gore Alice Cooper, and the natural heir to his throne in Hell — muso and movie-maker Rob Zombie, who is currently plugging the ‘sequel’ to his seminal 1998 solo debut ‘Hellbilly Deluxe’, the tour showcased the very best of the Devil’s tunes.

Fresh from its final shows Cooper for one will come to the UK in time for festival season, but before his reign reaches the metal head in Knebworth’s muddy fields we felt it wise to catch up with some of the men behind the monster — bassist Chuck Garric and guitarist Keri Kelli — for a peek at the horrors in store. Also joining our party of knights in service to the Satanic majesties of the Gruesome Twosome is Piggy D — a man who could boast a prime horror pedigree even before joining Rob Zombie’s caln as bassist in 2006, having previously served as Wednesday 13’s six-stringer, and collaborated with the ‘Coop on video and art projects, and the 2009 track, ‘Keepin’ Halloween Alive’. Without further ado, here are the first family of fright themselves, come to give you a snapshot of their 2010 Stateside summer vacation…

Alice Cooper — Keri Kelli — Chuck Garric

Piggy D, having worked with both Rob and Alice, described this tour as having something of an Addams family vibe — do you guys go into it in much the same spirit? Are the Zombie clan already good friends?

Keri: I think everybody kinda knows each other from being around LA, and we actually played with Rob when we did this thing a few years ago at the Scream Awards. Then obviously for the fans… I think the Rob Zombie fans know who Alice is of course — and some of them probably are already into him and have seen the show — but I think it’s great to get a lot of great new fans into Alice, kinda like the second generation. I always think it’s way cooler to be on a little package tour like this than just doing shows on your one, to be honest.

Chuck: Rob’s a great guy — we’ve become really good friends through the years as well other guys in the band. This is a tour which Alice has talked about for several years. There’s just a couple of bands out there who just make so much sense to go on tour with, it’s just a perfect marriage for horror rock fans, and anybody attending these shows who is a fan of both bands, or just one band, is definitely gonna get their money’s worth.

Alice said in the run up to these shows that any time you weren’t onstage we’d find you spooking each other backstage. Does that sum up the mood on a ‘Coop tour? Are you guys big on pranks?

Chuck: I wouldn’t say we’re big on pranks but we are into a little bit of hazing, a little bit of just messing with each other. You know, we don’t want anybody out there to get their ego up so we just try to make it as fun and as enjoyable as we possibly can.

Ever since 2003’s ‘Bare Bones’ tour we’ve seen some comparatively stripped down ‘Coop shows. Now you’re out with an act as theatrical as Rob Zombie will we be seeing you pull out all the stops once again in terms of the stageshow?

Chuck: I actually joined up with Alice during the Bare Bones, which was more of a stripped down version where you’re able to approach the set differently and pull out some of the more ‘rock’ live songs and kinda turn down the theatrics a little bit. I will tell you this — on this particular tour, if you blink, you’re gonna miss something! There is a lot going on, and there’s an amazing story behind the Alice Cooper show itself from the beginning to the end. So a lot of macabre, lot of danger — it’s just packed full of entertainment.

Keri: We’ve been touring this ‘Theatre of Death’ show for maybe 9 months now. The way Alice does his production is that every couple of years he’ll redo the whole show — redo the setlist and the theatrics, the staging and the lighting. I think this is one of the coolest Alice tours that I’ve seen, I mean even before I was in the band obviously I’d seen the band play and this is awesome. A lot of the old-skoolers who had seen him back in the 70s are saying that too. Alice is doing 5 different deaths — we’ve got the hanging, we’ve got the guillotine and we’ve got this Iron Maiden spike machine so it’s really cool, it’s literally the most Alice Cooper bang for the buck that you can pretty much get!

How does the setlist shape up on this one? With Alice you have such and amazing back catalogue I imagine it must be tough to whittle it down every tour…

Chuck: Obviously there are your standard songs that we need to do and there’s a creative way to do them, and then we try to pick some songs from the request we get for what people would like to hear, or pick some things that we feel might tell a story — little bit about the concept of the tour that we have that year. This particular tour is called Theatre of Death and like I said it tells a story from the beginning to the end so each song was selected and hand-picked to really fit in this tour and this story line.

Keri: When we started putting the stage show together the songs come into play as well. It was like 2 or 3 weeks of pre-production to get this tour right, then the songs start getting whittled out and put together into medleys and stuff like that. Alice's catalogue is so vast, he’s been around for so long and had so many and you obviously can’t do a 5 hour show so you have to whittle the songs down one way or another. But it’s a fine line between just playing all the hits and having to put some cool songs in that people haven’t heard for a while to give it some freshness.

Piggy D again said, regarding the Halloween track he recorded with Alice, that becoming a part of, and helping to perpetuate a legacy as great as this one is as much an imposing responsibility as it is an honor. Does that echo your feelings upon first joining the band?

Keri: Yeah. There’s no way around it — Alice is definitely a legend, he’s been doing this nor for literally 40 years, there’s a vast catalogue of legendary rock ‘n’ roll songs there and it is kinda weird to see him every day and just hanging out and to almost get used to it. But then if you stand back and think about it it’s like ‘wow man it’s Alice Cooper — the legend!’. But he really is a great guy and he treats us, and everybody in the whole crew, great. I mean he has a lot of guys out here that have been with him 30 years plus — his manager has been the same manager since day one. So he really keeps a great group of people around him and I think that says something about somebody.

Chuck: I’ve always respected Alice and I’ve always had a great deal of respect for Dennis Dunaway as a bass player. It really didn’t hit for a while that I was part of this history of Alice Cooper — 7 or 8 years later I’ve realized how much I’ve contributed to the legacy of Alice Cooper, which is so many years of touring, and different shows, and all the records I’ve been involved on and songs that I’ve written which are still around in the set today. It’s an honour to be part of this stuff, for sure.

You were both seasoned players before getting this gig, and had toured with some other famously theatrical acts. Still, did any of it prepare you for playing a part in what is almost more a love horror show than a rock gig?

Keri: No, to be honest with you. The bands that I had played in — notably Slash and Vince Neil’s bands, those were literally just straight up rock. It was just learn the setlist, so I was never involved in more of a ‘show’. Everything with this is planned out so it’s more like a theatre show and it runs like a well-oiled machine. It’s not just learning the set, you need to learn that during this section you’ve got to be here, alice is going to be there, lights come — then on this section you gotta go up on the rise and then jump down during this part because then this is gonna happen so everything is completely planned out. Things always are slightly different every night — I mean a few times when Alice has this sword he pulls out a sheath he hasn’t been able to get it and he’s been waving his arm around trying to get the sword out the thing until it finally goes flying and hits Chuck!

Chuck: There is a lot more going on in an Alice Cooper show than in your standard rock show — I mean you gotta look out for swords and dead babies flying all over the place outta their carriages! There are guillotines and gallows and there definitely are spots you gotta be in at the right time to avoid getting hit!

So Alice recently announced on his radio show that there are already 10 demos lined up for the next album — can you shed any more light on that? Will it be another concept piece after the success you enjoyed with that format on ‘Along Came a Spider’?

Chuck: At this point in time we’re getting together songs — we wrote so much material for the ‘Along Came a Spider’ that we’re starting to just pick that stuff back up as well as introducing some new songs we’ve just written. At this point it’s just a collection of songs but I tell ya, the way things are sounding on this particular record — it’s gonna be pretty killer.

Keri: To be honest with you I don't know exactly what the concept is going to be — if this is going to be one. That’s another thing that Alice in his mind puts together as things art progressing. What we’ll do is write songs on our own or with Alice — last time there was 20 something songs demoed and then there was 11 on the record. These days it’s so much easier than it used to be to record, now you can do little demos you know on your laptop, record a quick demo in an hour in your hotel room — it’s much simpler to put together ideas to work on them with the other guys for just an hour or two on the road. Everybody is kinda working on their own right now and we’ll really see what develops.

‘Along Came a Spider’ of course the last one went on to be Alice’s highest charting release since 1991 — did you feel at the time you were working on it that you were onto something so special, or did the public reaction take you by surprise?

Chuck: Like I say, we really put a lot of work into the writing for that particular record and I was proud of the songs I played on it — very proud of the songs I wrote — I contributed songwriting to ‘Killed by Love’ and ‘Feminine Side’, which I think turned out perfect. And yeah, I was kinda expecting that — with this particular label, and all the work we put into it — this could be a bigger record, for sure.

Keri: You never know how people are going to react — especially the fans who have been with Alice a long time. I mean I though it was cool, there are a lot of cool songs on it and I was glad that it got a great response. Hopefully this record is going to be even better, at the end of the day it really comes down to Alice and the producer, but I’m happy to be involved — hell I’m happy to be playing tonight!

Album aside, what’s next for the ‘Coop and co?

Keri: I think Alice is never gonna stop, he just doesn’t quit! Year in and year out, what does Alice Cooper do? He goes out on the road and he plays, that’s just part of his make-up! So I think we’re gonna roll this year and then I’m assuming that the record will be recorded on some of these breaks this year, or if not the start of next year. Then we’ll probably hit it again with a whole new show next year.

Chuck: We’re just gonna continue to keep touring, keep playing, keep making records — I love being in the Alice Cooper family and I love being on the road with him!

---

Rob Zombie: Piggy D

As well as playing with Rob you’ve worked with Alice on a number of occasions — this tour must feel a bit like a family roadtrip for you, right?

Yeah, it’s really funny — I’ve been in Rob’s band for 4 years, almost 5 years maybe, and I’ve been working with Alice for a long time too and we’ve never done anything with the two bands together so it’s definitely been a long time coming!

You helped Alice out with some graphic art on ‘Along Came a Spider’ — how did you get the call to do that?

We’ve been friends for a while and it’s something I always wanted to do. We started talking about the album about 2 years before the record was actually done, that turned into the video ‘Along Came A Spider: The Movie’, and that led on to doing clothing. My partner Karen, who I work with now, designed a lot of the clothes for this Theatre of Death tour so aside from mowing the guy’s lawn I don’t know what else could be doing!! Oh, we’re writing some new music too — I sent him some music, and then he tweaked it, and then once we got in we worked out the lyrics and it happened really, really fast and we had a lot of fun, so now we’re collaborating again.

More recently you went into the studio to lay down your part on Rob’s ‘Hellbilly Deluxe II’ — the sequel to an album released some 8 years before you even joined the band! What was your relationship to that album at the time?

I don’t think that record left my CD player for like a year! I remember what a big dael it was when that record came out — that’s kind of Rob Zombie’s ‘Welcome to My Nightmare’, well it is — his first solo record and it really defined a genre. I remember going go that show in Texas and people had the ‘X’s in their foreheads, the make-up and the whole bit, I mean it was a big deal. So it was pretty surreal being a part of the second half of that and that was the first studio record I’ve played with him on.

...

I was going to ask actually if you had any plans, or even just the time, to consider another solo album?

I started, a couple of times — there’s a lot of stuff kinda kicking around and if I was doing something that I think was in a vein that Rob Zombie fans would appreciate then the time might be right to put something out that they would enjoy between records, kinda like John does. But it’s apples and oranges — what I do with Rob, and even the stuff I do with Alice it’s so different — they’re so different from each other that they’re night and day different from what I do on my own. I love all different kinds of music but the stuff I write for myself is just rock and almost hard pop tunes — that’s what I love, and that’s what comes naturally. It’s also an opportunity for me to say whatever I have to say and not have to worry about it being confused with someone else’s vision. Writing music for Rob or Alice you’re not only collaborating with somebody but you have to keep their history and what they say and their style in mind.

That’s an interesting point you make about maintaining the history they’ve written long before you got involved — much as it’s an honour to work with these guys do you feel also there’s quite a responsibility that comes with it?

You know, that’s a good question. I’ve been an Alice fan for a little over 20 years so I’ve seen everything and absorbed everything that he’s done, so in that situation I knew there was a lot of things that I couldn't do with the video we worked on, either for money or time restraints, or just because it was a little too shocking or whatever. Given the nature of that record and what I had to work with I think I got just about everything in that I wanted to do. I wasn’t so much intimidated by the process as I was excited by revisiting some old scenes and putting a new spin on them.

...

---

So Much Horror Business

The monsters’ moonlighting

For lesser men, being the face and musical foundation being the pretty ugly masks of Zombie and Cooper might be more than enough. Our trio of ghouls each keep their digits in a bludgeoning baker’s dozen of bloody pies though. Ever the enterprising sort, Keri Kelli was renowned for playing in 2 or 3 LA glam bands at a time prior to signing up to the ‘Coop camp, and remains no less disdainful of the notion of free time now. Throughout the Gruesome Twosome tour he’s been offering superfans hour-long one-on-one guitar lessons before the show, saying “it means I get to play a little bit during the day and it gives me something to look forward to because touring a lot of ot waiting around!”. Waiting does not comes easily to Kelli, and he adds “whatever we get done with the Alice run I have something else planned — playing with somebody, recording some band or producing some band or opening a bar” — which he did last summer in the shape of BVega real ale lovers paradise ‘Aces & Ales’.

Piggy D has tended to keep his extra curricular projects closer to the day job, showcasing his talent as a graphic artist and film-maker — as you’ll already have read — on Alice’s ‘Along Came a Spider’ package. That said, fans who know him from playing sidekick to the superstars of schlock will, by Piggy’s own admission, likely be truly shocked by the musical and thematic departures of his 2007, ‘Evacuation Plan’ album, which was inspired by real life horror experiences of Hurricane Katrina.

Chuck Garric meanwhile has recently been moonlighting with Cheetah Chrome and Sylvain Slyvain’s ‘Batusis’. Playing the band’s SXSW debut in April he commented “it was just so much fun… their new record is just unbelievable and to play some of those old Dead Boys songs and play some of the New York Dolls songs with those guys was a gas”.

(Originally published in Issue #37 of this UK fanzine which ran from 2000 until 2011)